Rudd, Abbott snipe over indigenous vote

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says buckpassing on recognising Aborigines in the constitution must end, and is promising a referendum within two years.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott argues it was Labor who put the process on ice in 2012 and he remains committed to a draft constitutional amendment within 12 months if the coalition wins power.

Mr Rudd on Wednesday used a speech in Arnhem Land, marking the 50th anniversary of the first indigenous petitions presented to parliament, to propose a referendum within two years of the federal election if Labor was returned.

"No more delays, no more excuses, no more buck-passing. It's time the nation got on with this business," he said.

The prime minister earlier said Mr Abbott needed to "get his act together" and detail his position.

But Mr Abbott said the government had been sitting on its hands.

"I don't want to politicise this, I really don't, and I'm surprised that Mr Rudd is trying to do that," he told reporters in Melbourne.

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"I suggest to Mr Rudd ... the last thing he should be doing is trying to politicise the vital question of indigenous constitutional recognition on which, in principle, everyone is agreed."

Mr Abbott said the referendum would be a "unifying and liberating" moment for the nation.

The initial push for a referendum was suspended by Labor in September 2012 because of the lack of a consensus on what the change should entail.

The parliament in February instead unanimously passed an Act of Recognition as a stepping stone to a referendum.

A two-year sunset clause was inserted in the bill to put pressure on politicians to secure constitutional change within that period.

The community of Yirrkala on Wednesday marked five decades since two petitions went to the federal parliament seeking reconsideration of the decision to excise 300 square kilometres of Arnhem Land for bauxite mining.

The 1963 petitions have been credited with starting a debate which led to the 1967 referendum giving Aboriginal people the vote, the statutory acknowledgment of land rights in 1976 and the overturning of the terra nullius concept by the High Court in the Mabo case in 1992.